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Friday, 22 June 2012

Dad "glows" with PB River Mersey Bream

The headlines in the newspapers and on the internet news
sites all had the same headline last Thursday night and that was for the whole
country to brace itself for the imminent arrival of the worst storm in over 50
years, this storm would bring half a months worth of rainfall in only two days
and would be arriving over southern and northern Wales. This amount of rainfall, if true to their
word, would mark disaster for the opening of the river season, if it arrived with
such ferocity of rainfall in those areas it would see the River Wye, River
Severn and River Dee being a complete wash out and unfortunately it proved to
be accurate and the opening to the river season proved to be a disaster, for
most.

As you can see by the chart above the River Dee was carrying
a lot of water but we travelled through at midnight on Friday hoping to find a
tributary where we could wet a line but alas even these usually gentle streams
where a transformed into a raging dirty brown torrent.

Midnight in the pitch dark is no place to be taking decent
pictures of the state of the river so me and my Fiance took a trip out the
River Dee the following day to take some pictures in the light of day and these
pictures below show just how much extra water the river was carrying, I think
it peaked at 7.8m. The top image is a
peg I fished last year when the river was at normal level and the below one is
a picture of the same peg on Sunday, as you can see totally un-fishable.

We took in a few locations along the river around Chester
and I have put them in a mini video below which will give you more of an idea
as to the state of the river levels over the weekend. To our amazement though when we travelled to
Eccleston Ferry there was a group of kids and there teacher suited and booted
ready to go rowing, rather you than me I thought. The look on the kid’s faces as the tutor told
them the river was high and dangerous so they needed to stick close and the
look of fear as he read out to them the safety procedure in the case of an
accident summed up to me how bad the river was.

Back to Saturday morning and it was gone 2am by the time we
had travelled around some regular spots on the Dee hoping to find some slack
water to fish, this ultimately proved a thankless task and it was back to the
drawing board. Situations like this are when you see the benefit of technology
these days as from a car park in the middle of no where I was able to check, on
my phone, the last recorded water levels of the River Dane, Severn, Ribble and
Wyre on the EA water level website, a totally priceless source of information
for us river anglers. I had of course
used this, the previous evening, to check the Dee and we all knew what we were
heading to when we set off for the Dee but being opening weekend we thought we
had to try.

So with all the rivers from the River Severn in Wales up to
the River Wyre near Blackpool showing either a rising or already bloated river
levels we were at a loss as to what to do next, none of us really wanted to
fish a still water, we needed that fix that only running water could give us
and after a few ideas bounding round one of us come up with the idea of fishing
our local River Mersey, a river we have all lived next to our whole lives but
never ever fished, our time had come.

The River Mersey, to all that line her banks, has long been
seen as a dirty, polluted river with rumours of 3 eyed fish along with the odd
glowing green specimen reported over the years.
This view began the change a few years back when salmon where reported
to be back in the river after a 2oo year absence the full report was published
on the BBC news website on the following link: http://news.bbc.co.uk/local/manchester/hi/people_and_places/nature/newsid_8268000/8268790.stm.

Things since then have gone from strength to strength with
regards fishing on the Mersey, Warrington Anglers now hold weekly matches on
there with regular reports of good catches of bream and roach with other
stretches of the Mersey now being home to specimen carp and pike. The tributaries further upstream are now also
reporting quality fishing with the likes of the River Goyt now containing
decent barbell and chub so in the past few years fishing on the Mersey has been
on the increase.

We arrived on the Victoria Park stretch of the Mersey and
with parking all along Weir Lane its really easy parking right behind you pegs
so its river fishing that is accessible to all ages and abilities. I took a couple of pictures of the location
that will be going live this week on the River Venues page on the blog so keep
an eye out for that coming soon. The
fishing from my point of view was none existent I tried to trot a float down
the river with not so much as a chewed maggot for my efforts; my uncle applied
the same tactics and managed to catch a few roach, dace and chub.

The star of the day was my dad who put faith in his trusty
feeder tactics and caught a new fantastic personal best bream of exactly 7lb,
speaking to my dad afterwards he said the bite nearly tore the rod in and he
actually thought he had hooked a carp by the way it was fighting. I arrived to net the fish for him and was
amazed by the colossal size and weight of the fish; I can only imagine what a
22lb bream would look like on the bank because this fish was huge.

We quickly took some pictures of the fish and as you can see
my dad was more than made up with his capture and we quickly weighed the fish
and took a few moments to admire the beauty of this warrior of a fish that has
obviously been in the river for a good number of years.

This fish came early on in the session for my dad so all our
confidence was raised by the capture of this fish but alas it was not
forthcoming. We did put in a few hours
on there but after being on the bank since midnight and not having any sleep it
eventually caught up with us and we called it a day around 1pm, not a great day
for us but a day that will never be forgotten for the memories that bream
provided will last long in the memory and great again to see my dad back
amongst the fish.

That concluded our fishing over the weekend as Sunday was
left for the rivers to run off a bit and for me to get some pictures of the
flooded river Dee for this week’s blog entry.

The Small but Mighty River Dane – Monday 18th June 2012

All through Sunday I had my eyes glued to the EA river level
website, watching closely the levels of the River Dane in particular and
surprisingly she was dropping down nicely and by Sunday Afternoon it was quite
clear the river would be in fine fettle the next day so plans where made to
attack the river the following afternoon when I had a half day booked off from
work.

I have long been a fan of using big baits for chub and with
the river probably carrying a tinge of colour still so smelly bait is generally
a good bet, I have long been a fan of luncheon meat on the rivers and I have
over the last few seasons tinkered with a mix that has done me proud. I always start of with the ingredients shown
in the picture below but this time I added some of the HalfBean Baits Hemp Carp
Goop into the mixture as well as a few other ingredients that unfortunately
will have to remain a secret but you will not go far wrong with this as a base
mix in creating your own unique flavours.
I have never added the Halfbean Baits hemp carp Goop before so I was
interested to see if it had any impact on results.

The meat cut into cubes it was left to marinate in the mix
over night to let as much of the flavour penetrate the meat and make it
irresistible to the chub. Looking at the
bag later that evening it stunk to high heaven, which I saw as a good thing and
I had high hopes for the session the following day. Again these plans were announced on the
Facebook page and on Twitter, both are great places to see how my fishing is
going on during the week and links can be found in the right hand tool bar.

Monday morning arrived and with only a half day in work I
counted every one of the 3 hours and 42 minutes I was at my desk. I looked longingly out of the window at the
clear conditions just dying to get out of work and on my way to my natural
home, the river bank.

Midday came and dead on the stroke of midday I was out of
work like a rocket had been lit under my backside, it was a quick trip home to
load the car and pick up my dad and we were on our way to the river, isn’t it
amazing how long the journey is to the river yet the journey home never seems
so long eh??.

We arrived in the car park to the site of one car parked up
so my confidence levels where raised as the stretch we were on does not have
too many swims and can suffer with too much angling pressure. Walking the banks it wasn’t too long before
we bumped into the owner of the guy fishing a swim created over the close
season by a big tree falling into the margins I must admit I will be having a
few casts in that swim next time its free.
Speaking to the guy he was, like all anglers you meet on the river, a
pleasure to speak to and I happily chatted to him about how his river campaign
had started which turned out to be great news for him as he had caught two chub
but bad news for me as they had both come from the swim I was walking too and
to make matters worse he confirmed there had been four cars in the car park
when he arrived.

This may not seem like a bad thing but on such a small
intimate river two chub coming out of a swim you intend to fish is a lot of
commotion and can easily spook the fish, not to mention you have no idea on
what bait the anglers have been fishing, how many anglers have been in the swim
throughout the morning and no idea at the amount of bait that has been
introduced. I personally don’t use much
bait on the river Dane but I know others lean towards laying a blanket of feed
down to get the fish confident both methods are fine of course and both catch
fish but it just makes it that little bit harder not knowing, still I stuck to
my guns and fished the peg I had been day dreaming about all morning.

Arriving at my peg all I could hear was the soothing sound
of the river flowing by past my feet and the birds singing in the fields around
me with the occasional call of the local buzzards riding the upper warm
thermals, it was a joy to be back on the river banks, not a soul in sight and a
beautiful swim to go at that could be approached with both trotting and feeder
tactics. The sky above was bright blue
with the odd whispy cloud and it was really warm. With bright clear conditions I knew any chub
would be deep under the cover of the far bank snags and would need tempting out
from there gloomy lair with a steady stream of bait so I began on the trotting
rod fishing maggot leaving the quiver tipped meat for when the day cooled and
the evening cloud cover moved in.

Not long after starting trotting my first fish on the season
was on the bank and it is by no means the biggest fish I have ever caught but it
has to be one of the most beautifully marked.
The river is jammed packed full of minnows and fishing maggot can be
impossible some times as there are literally hordes of these minnows in the
river but just look at the magical colours on this minnow I can only imagine
how popular these fish would be to catch if they went to around 5lb in weight,
beautiful fish!!.

I persevered on the maggot trotting down the swim and caught
countless numbers of minnows some even taking 4 maggots on a size 18 hook, it
was getting out of control so I began to increase the amount of maggots I was
introducing each trot down and this immediately saw much better fish move in as
the bites from the minnows disappeared and after a few more trots down I
connected with a better fish, not a chub, that was clear form the outset of the
fight, but another beautiful river fish, the grayling.

Now you will notice the picture above, below the picture of
the grayling, this is the fish being rested in the margins in the net. The grayling is very much like the barbell
and pike it gives it all in the fight and afterwards is completely drained,
think of it as a 100m sprinter being thrown into an a swimming race straight after
running the 100m they wouldn’t have the energy to even get going, this is kind
of what it is like putting a grayling or barbell straight back into the flow
after catching it.

The afternoon wore on and I managed to land two more
grayling from the swim as well as a mountain of minnows but with the evening
approaching I began to drip feed some samples of meat into the flow at
increasing regular intervals to try and get the chub searching for this tasty
bait in preparation for trying to catch one of two later on in the evening.

The shadows from the trees on the far bank began to get
longer and they now blocked all sunlight from the water, the clouds had began
to come in and now and the whole feel of the are changed. Spending a lot of time on the river you get a
feel for when the time is right for a bite and everything at that moment just
felt right for the chub to be about so it was away with my trotting rod and out
came the barbell 1.75tc rod, ready to do battle with a late evening chub.

I have been using pre tied hair rigs for my fishing in the
last two years but in the closed season I have began to tie my own rigs n
preparation for my chub and barbel fishing and this was to be its first outing
on the river. I like to keep my fishing as simple as possible, for many years I
have used just a straight lead stopped with a weight for my lead fishing but I
rarely now fish without using the ESP lead clips with the tubing up the line, I
still use this tubing on the river, not for its camouflage properties but for
it to protect the line when the fish is amongst the snags I feel it offers some
added protection to the main line and I have not noticed any reduction in bites
although the river was coloured on Monday.

When fishing on the rivers, especially for chub I like to
get in a comfortable position, usually seeing me sat on my trusty unhooking mat
with the rod low to the water and the line resting across my finger, feeling
for the bite. It is a technique I saw first
on one of Matt Hayes shows and I must admit it takes some getting used to but
after a while you get to a stage where you don’t even have to watch the tip all
the time you can take in the wildlife around you safe in the knowledge that any
bite will be picked up. Chub have got a
name for being greedy eating machines that give violent wraps on the quiver tip
but in my experience they can also give the most gentle of bites as the mouth
the bait before snatching at it, this is when you can get ahead of the game
with them and hook a fish that might of got away with the bait had the bite
been registered through the tip and not the line across the finger.

The bait hadn’t been in the swim more than 30 seconds when I
felt a subtle pull on the line and knowing this was a chub mouthing the bait I quickly
struck into a fish and there was no mistaking what was on the other end this
time the solid resistance and the line heading towards the roots of the safety
of the trees, this was a chub.

There are rare reports of the odd barbel residing in these
sections of the dane and if I am ever lucky enough to connect with one I want
to land the fish so i always go armed with 10lb line, it may seem like overkill
for the chub but it is not the case on this small intimate river where the fish
go hard for the safety of the snags and sometimes when the fishing gets tough
you need to get closer to the snags.
This setup balanced with a soft action rod saw me tame my first proper
fish of the season and I was more than happy.

The afternoon moved into late evening and I missed a cracker
of a bite to the curse of all anglers the mobile phone going off but I knew I hadn’t
made any contact with the fish so I was still in with a chance so I quickly
made my excuses and re baited up and was back in there waiting like an
expectant heron and within 10 minutes it was a case of de-ja-vu as I felt
another wrap round of a bite but there was no mistakes this time and I connected
with a hard fighting chub that knew every nook and cranny of the river and I was
amazed when a chub around 3lb graced the net and not a specimen around 5lb,
still I was a happy angler.

All in all I was more than happy with two chub from the swim
considering the pressure it had been out under throughout the day and I was happy
that the bait had worked again on this river.
It was amazing to be back on the river and I only hope the river gods
are kind to us again this weekend with the weather but looking at the forecast I
think we are in for some bad weather.